


This Woman's Work

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (kind of), Anal Sex, Dehumanization, Feminization, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, HYDRA Trash Party, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Internalized Misogyny, M/M, Misogyny, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 18:33:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15563925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Winter Solider gathers evidence, and reaches a conclusion. It meets all the characteristics, or most of them, of a woman.(From a prompt for Bucky misconstruing his own gender based on the confusion and misogyny that dominates his life. Plus some aftermath.)





	This Woman's Work

**Author's Note:**

> Full triggers + prompt listed in end notes.

 

1.

Malfunction.

 

Something’s wrong, with the—the mask, it would seem, there’s a _breach_ —

 

It throws a hand up to inspect the problem, but when it runs its gloved hands along the mask’s edge, where it meets the bottom of its goggles, it can find no crack. It doesn’t feel like a crack, anyways, it feels like insects, like a tendril caught between the mask and its skin, _itching_. Its hand continues; it finds something. Tug.

 

A vague corresponding ache on its head. _Oh_. It—the breach—is the asset’s own hair. The tech must have accidentally caught some of it when he put on the mask.

 

No malfunction; no breach. Annoyance. It _itches_.

 

Tug again.

 

“Stop playing with your hair,” snaps the Commander. The asset drops its hand at once. They resume their silence; the Commander and the asset are the only ones in the car, and they are traveling to a location that is Top Secret. The asset, of course, doesn’t know where they’re going, but the last sign it saw was in French on top, Khmer on the bottom. That tells the asset most of what it needs to know about where they are, but it pretends not to have seen. The car is not a usual transport van, either, but an older model, rattling as they drive, its tinted windows the only hint that they are carrying secrets, that they are not normal people inside.

 

A hand appears in the asset’s vision a second before it cracks, lightly but startlingly, over its entire face. “I told you to stop fuckin’ playing with your hair,” the Commander says, “leave it be. Christ, is it not pretty enough for you?”

 

The asset frowns down at its hand—it hadn’t realized it was toying with its hair. It cannot think what _pretty_ has to do with this. Pretty is—pretty is neat, it knows (“it wasn’t pretty,” the men sometimes say, when a scene has been bloody, a killing messy, an unexpected witness violently disposed of). Pretty is also—girls. Women. It knows that, but why it knows that is long gone. They took it away.

 

It clears its throat. It was asked a question. Respond. Now.

 

“Stuck,” it says, and indicates the little loop of hair formed by the mask clamping the stray hairs down.

 

“I don’t give a fuck,” says the Commander. “Leave it alone. I don’t care about your bangs, Miss Thing.”

 

The asset doesn’t understand this remark. It wishes it could tug the hair free. It wishes it could have short hair, like all the other men.

 

Except. The Commander just called it _Miss_. And men, the asset had gathered, did not have hair as long as its. It didn’t remember a time when its hair was any shorter. It suddenly felt that particular feeling—echoing and cold and strange—that meant it was trying to recall something that had been taken out. Men and women were. Were.

 

Evidence. Survey the scene. Men, and the asset knew it interacted mostly with men, had short hair, which the asset did not. Women had long hair, like the asset. Men gave orders, which the asset did not. Women took them, which the asset did. Men had penises, which the asset did, but they also used those penises to _fuck_ , which the asset had never done. Women had something else, and sometimes, the asset realized, grasping at pieces of memories just before they dripped away, sometimes, it had heard the men refer to _its_ —thing. Cunt?

 

The hand appears again, and the Commander wrenches the stuck hair from the asset’s face. It feels, dully, the tear, and the ache at its scalp. The hair comes loose, some of it sticking behind beneath the asset’s mask. No sense trying to remove that.

 

“We’re here, lady,” grunts the Commander, smiling, though the asset didn’t know why.

* * *

 

2.

The asset likes its mouthguard. It isn’t supposed to _want_ or _like_ or even _need_ , that is greedy, not permitted, and mostly, it doesn’t. Sometimes they tell it what it wants (to create a better world, a world ruled by Hydra), what it likes (victory, cocks, “that”), what it needs (wipes, ice, something in its mouth). Mostly, it is content to want or need or like only what it is told it does.

 

But it likes the mouthguard. It isn’t right to say the mouthguard is _its_ , because possessions are for people, but the asset is pretty sure nobody else uses the mouthguard, and it likes it nonetheless. It feels good and the rubbery feeling around its teeth is soothing against the nasty, shivery jolts of electricity. There’s something about it that. That. Is good. Is. Feels. Like “mission completed,” but not quite the same. Not _finished_ , but. Almost.

 

“You like that thing a little too much, you know that?” says a voice above it, fuzzy, and the asset can’t lift its head to look up. Its whole body is shaking.

 

Then a tug behind its teeth; time to let the mouthguard go. It catches itself resisting, just a bit, and loosens its jaw. The voice attached to the hand pulling it out chuckles. “That’s right, girl, mm. Enjoy it.” The voice laughs again, and the asset distantly sees the man’s blurry shape shake its head. Two fingers tap its cheek lightly, almost—gently. “I’ve been alone with you too long, ya lil bitch.”

* * *

 

3.

It is waiting for the chance to make a shot, and has been for so long time has started to slide around. It mustn’t lose focus. Its face is very cold.

 

“I swear to _Gawd_ ,” the Commander says behind him, “if this bitch does not show her face by midnight I’ll shoot _myself_.”

 

(It is not the same Commander who fixed the asset’s hair. All the men with names and titles change faces, voices, languages, accents, preferences. But they are all the same, really, to the asset, who is not a person like they are.)

 

“God, do you ever stop complaining?” says the Lieutenant, though he doesn’t sound angry. “Find a local if you want to warm up.”

 

“Watch your tone there,” replies the Commander, laughing as well. “Can’t think of the _locals_ , remember? Got Sheila at home.”

 

The Lieutenant laughs, something the asset cannot see apparently surprises him. “Seriously? I thought all you family men had your gals in every port.”

 

“Eh,” the Commander says, and the asset can imagine him shrugging. He is not a very serious man, much of the time; he once gave the asset a piece of chocolate, winked when he did it, and the other men call often him “Dave,” not “sir.” The asset does not know what to make of this Commander; his easy nature is inviting, sometimes makes the asset’s chest feel as if a great blockage has been cleared, but his disregard for the rules makes the asset anxious. Without rules, men—not to mention women, or assets—are nothing.

 

“Not much my business,” the Commander continues, “what the others get up to. Hey, you.” He presses the toe of his boot to the asset’s ankle. The asset is prone with its rifle, on its elbows. The Commander and the Lieutenant sit behind him, better shielded from the view from the street. “You awake there?”

 

“Yes, sir,” the asset says.

 

“Good.”

 

“Speaking of a woman in every port,” says the Lieutenant, but he doesn’t continue. The asset feels a hand hovering over its rear, as if about to pat it.

 

“Not my style, personally,” replies the Commander.

 

“Oh, Christ, not mine either,” says the Lieutenant, “you know, I go for girls. Christ. But I’m told…”

 

The hand over the asset’s rear lands, quickly, squeezes once, and is gone. The asset is grateful it is its body is so cold, making the hand almost impossible to feel through its pants.

 

“Oh, I’ve seen the little diva with something in its mouth. I’m sure it makes a fine woman when no one’s in your port,” the Commander laughs, and the Lieutenant does as well, his hand coming back down on the asset’s rear harder, slapping it, twice, three times, until the asset’s body judders with it.

 

The asset stares at the street below, waiting for the target. Something wet and ugly is writhing in its belly. Its head is filling up with half-memories, and they are all foggy and smeared. They hurt.

 

Perhaps its mistake _was_ believing it could be a woman, since women are real people, the way the asset is not.

* * *

 

4.

“Now _this_ ,” says a voice above it, faraway and yet too close, “is a fat fuckin’ cunt.” The sentence is punctuated with a smack, and the asset hears it more than it feels it. It is so far away. It knows, though, what the man above it means.

 

“Oh, she wants it,” says someone else, and they are long past telling the asset what it wants, now. They are just saying it. It’s easier, anyways.

 

“Course she does, look how wet she got for me.” The asset holds still as something slides inside of it, but it’s going too far, it’s not—not good. Not right.

 

The dull pain gives way to sharp, urgent pain, suddenly, exploding from the inside, and the asset whimpers, thrashes, before it can stop itself. It hears fast, thready breath, knows it’s its own, but it can’t stop. Hurts too much, too far in, please please, please stop, please.

 

“Awwww,” somebody says, “she cries like a real girl.”

 

“Shut _up_ ,” says one of the voices, and the asset’s long (pretty?) hair is gathered into a knot, someone has grabbed it, lifts the asset’s head off the floor and slams its face back down. Pain explodes in its nose, its brow bone. Everything spins and squeals. The pain in its—its—cunt?—is as spiking and intrusive as the pain in its head pounding and overpowering.

 

“Oh, no,” someone laughs, “there goes your pretty face.”

* * *

 

5.

“Um. Steve?”

 

Steve looks up and smiles at Bucky, and it feels itself smile back. Sometimes it mirrors Steve exactly, which its doctor says is a result of feeling anxious and empty, but it isn’t doing that right now. It just feels. Right. To smile.

 

“Hey, Buck. What’s up?”

 

_What’s up_ means, Bucky—its name is Bucky, and “Buck” is also its name, and some others, too, but those are the two most important, Steve says, because they’re the ones it said it liked—has learned, a couple of things. Something like “mission report,” but also something like “you can tell me what you are thinking about.”

 

Bucky bites its lip. It wishes, as it often wishes, that it weren’t so ugly, because maybe this question—this confusion—wouldn’t have arisen. But it has to ask, or it won’t know, and then it could make a mistake. Steve and the doctor, and Sam Wilson, and Natalia, all say: it is okay to ask questions. _Especially_ to clarify. But even just for no reason. It is _encouraged_. “Encouraged” is like an order it doesn’t get punished for failing to carry out.

 

“I have. A question.” It is not very good at making conversation, because it is not people, it is quite stupid in this way. It gets stuck and forgets words, or says the wrong one even though it knows what it wanted to say. The doctor says this is called “aphasia” and is not its fault, but from the electricity in its brain. Even when it is remembering words okay, it is hard to make whole sentences, respond to the rhythms of conversation between real people.

 

“Okay!” says Steve, brightly. He sets down his pen. “I’ll help however I can.”

 

Bucky takes a deep breath. It wishes it were not standing while Steve sits. It doesn’t feel right.

 

“Why,” it asks, and feels the sticky, writhing tendrils of panic in its belly, but it is _encouraged_ to ask questions, “do you. Call. Or. Why do you. Say. ‘He.’ When you—mean me?”

 

It is sweating, a little. From asking a question so impertinent, so long, so personal. And of a man. It knows better. Its throat is closing and its fingers, the ones that are real, shake. Steve said—and its doctor, and Sam Wilson, and Natalia—that it will never be punished here, but that doesn’t seem right, it never has—punishment is how it _learns_ —and the room feels like it is getting smaller and warmer. It surely will be punished for this.

 

“Oh,” says Steve, and the asset forces its eyes up from the floor to look at him, though it can’t meet his eyes. “I just—I don’t like that they called you ‘it.’ I think they did that to make you feel like you didn’t matter. But you matter so much, especially to me. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. Would you like me to call you something else?”

 

Bucky is sucking in its lower lip, the way it does when it is very weak, or “anxious,” as the doctor says. It remembers its mouthguard, and wishes it could have that back. Then it could feel that funny nice feeling, and especially it wouldn’t have to talk. But it’s been asked a question. The room is tilting, but it forces its voice out.

 

“But.” No no no, bad thing to say. So bad, so bad. It swallows and can’t make its throat feel any less dry and airless. “When you said, said. You said. ‘He is a good guy.’” The asset is very good at remembering things people said, if it is allowed to keep it. So far it has been allowed to keep everything Steve has said (and the doctor, and Sam Wilson, and Natalia). At least, it thinks so. “When you. Were talking to Sam. About me.”

 

“Yeah,” says Steve, when Bucky can’t continue for a moment. “I remember. I think it’s true.”

 

“But.” NO. Bad, stupid, stupid idiot worthless naughty idiot bitch. Not allowed. “I—I—‘guy’ means. Means. Man. Yes?”

 

Its ability to talk is falling apart. It feels a dull tug and realizes it is pulling its own hair, which the doctor says it does when it is “very anxious.” The doctor says that’s okay as long as it doesn’t hurt itself, but it doesn’t want to play with its hair now anyways. It drops its hand, curls it in a fist, to make sure it stops.

 

“Usually,” says Steve, his brow furrowed. “Is that okay?”

 

“It—I—I’m not, not, not—a man,” it manages, eyes watering now with fear, with frustration at the way its tongue trips over words. It could already feel the pain in its tensely coiled body, the awful gasping panic and the inescapable hurting. Steve is going to hit it. Steve is going to hit it and kick it, pull its ugly hair, show it where it belongs. Put things inside its cunt, to remind it. Punish it for being so ugly, he couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. Show it where it belonged, show it _who_ it belonged to. It knew these things, it did, but the idea of Steve bent over it, panting as he got inside, made its whole face cloud up and choke and it was crying. Ugly stupid thing.

 

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice was far away, and higher pitched than usual, but firm. “Bucky, you’re safe. Bucky, listen to my voice, please, you’re with me, Steve, and you’re safe. You’re in New York City, you’re with me, I’m not going to leave you. Bucky. Bucky, you’re safe. Bucky, nobody’s going to hurt you. You’re in New York, you’re safe, you’re with me, Bucky.”

 

It was on the floor, against the wall. Steve was next to it, just close enough to touch if he reached out his arm. He _was_ reaching his arm out, but not touching it. He was offering it something. When its gaze finally fell on Steve’s hand, the voice said, warmly, “If you want this, it’s just some gum. You can take it any time you want to.”

 

It doesn’t, not yet, because it doesn’t want to move, but its beginning to remember that it is inside Steve’s apartment, to confirm with itself that no one is touching it. It feels wetness on its face, suddenly, cold, and hears the hum of Steve’s refrigerator. It turns its head, slowly, to look at Steve.

 

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve says, and he smiles. “You’re with me in New York, we were talking about some rough stuff. You’re safe.”

 

It nods once. It knows the apartment. It knows where it is.

 

“Do you want some gum?”

 

It shakes its head, but holds its hand out anyways. It shouldn’t be refusing. And somewhere in its brain it remembered Sam Wilson explaining how chewing and the taste was “grounding.” Mostly, though, it thought the gum might feel like the mouthguard, a little.

 

Its hands shook but it took the wrapper off itself while Steve continued to tell it it was safe, in New York, with Steve. It knew, but it was nice to hear.

 

When the gum is in its mouth, Steve says, “Can I help you up?” and it feels itself nod.

 

The touching is almost too much, everything in its brain crawling out onto its skin, but then Steve lets go. He lets go. He. Lets go.

 

“You let go,” it says, dumbly.

 

“I—sorry,” says Steve. “I just didn’t want to crowd you.”

 

It nods. It wishes there was a place between “crowding” and here, which is standing and feeling exposed and cold and empty and ugly, stupid and wretched and unlovable, worthless, worthless little bitch.

 

“Can I give you a hug?” Steve asks, and then adds, quickly, “Only if you want me too. It might help, but it’s up to you.”

 

It swallows. It knows it has had a _hug_ —Steve has given it one a few times before—but the idea of holding without anything else is so foreign, now, it sounds intoxicating. Like sleep without cold, like its body going slack and sleepy without the electricity writing it dry beforehand.

 

It nodded, and Steve held it close.

 

Later, they would talk to the doctor, together, and just Bucky, and Bucky would explain that it wasn’t a man, and that it was a woman, and it would take a long time, and it would throw up in the doctor’s neat blue waste-bin, and the doctor would ask a lot of questions that didn’t make sense, or else they did, but answering them made them seem upside down. It would cry, and the doctor would say that women weren’t the only ones who did that. Steve would cry later, which confirmed this. Steve and the doctor would say that if “woman” felt right in its heart, then that was okay, but “woman” didn’t mean what they’d told him it meant. They’d say it could be “he,” or “she,” or “they,” or even “it” if that felt the most right, but the only person who could decide which was right was Bucky, and it could change its mind any time. They said that, just like the wipes and the things that hurt and all the things Hydra did, the things that made it think it was a woman shouldn’t have happened, but they weren’t Bucky’s fault. They’d say those things, which were called “rape” and “sexual abuse,” words Bucky knew but never thought of with regards to itself, were a lot like his arm—they were wrong because Bucky, and only Bucky, was supposed to decide what to do with its body. They’d say, _You’re a person_ , again and again.

 

Later still, Bucky would shuffle through these ideas, and while they were all daunting and slightly nauseating, it was nice to slowly settle into being a person. Gradually, he would begin to think of himself as _he_ , and would become more and more disgusted with what he’d thought being a woman meant. He’d cut his hair, but then find he missed it. Steve and his doctors would say that hair length didn’t make him a man or a woman, it was just a “personal preference.” Lot of things were personal preferences, and Bucky would work on them all. So he’d let his hair grow back again, and Steve would say one day that it looked “beautiful,” and Bucky would know that he didn’t have to be afraid, and that he wasn’t being told what kind of person to be, but that it just meant Steve loved him.

 

For the moment, though, he is shaking, an _it_ , and holding fast to Steve, who is holding him back. Which is enough, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers: men call Bucky a woman or feminizing language to humiliate and sexualize him, which Bucky misconstrues as evidence that he is literally a woman. Bucky's understanding of what a woman is/does is based entirely in intensely misogynist ideas (women have long hair, are submissive to men, and are the receiving partners in sex). Part 4 contains explicit rape. All other parts reference it; 5 the most graphically. 
> 
> From this prompt on mcu_trash/HTP: _The Winter Solider doesn't really understand the concept of gender. He is mostly referred to per 'it', his hair is long like a woman's, and when his handlers rape him they call his ass a cunt. And not like HYDRA ever bothered to give him the talk about the birds and the bees, so the fact that he gets fucked 'like a woman' makes him believe he's female. He tries to reason that he somehow must be female because he was used like one, and the fact that the few women involved with HYDRA are mostly subordinates to men only reinforces that._
> 
> _Not looking for forced feminization and/or trans/genderqueer Bucky per se, just the Winter Soldier misconstructing the whole concept of gender based on being on the receiving end of sexual abuse and the patriarchal structures around him. He doesn't want to be a woman, no one makes him act like one, he just thinks he might be female based on the clues he gets here and there that he associates with what he knows about womanhood within HYDRA, because his personhood was completely erased and that's the only information he has to try and build it up again._
> 
> _+Post WS Bucky thinking he must be the 'woman' in his relationship with Steve_


End file.
